


The wind doth blow today, my love

by macabrekawaii



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, I actually used past tense give me a gold star, I'm just a kid playing in a sandbox set up on top of an entire beach, Jason Todd is Hemlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29456913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabrekawaii/pseuds/macabrekawaii
Summary: “Who’s there?” Dick asked, like a complete moron who knew full well that things lurking in the shadows were not going to leap out and announce themselves. Bruce told him not to come back here. Bruce told him to leave it alone. Bruce told him not to do a lot of things and the days of Dick dutifully following Batman’s orders were long since passed.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	The wind doth blow today, my love

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Unquiet Grave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24684544) by [Shenanigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/Shenanigans). 



> You know, I hated AUs. I never read any AUs. I did not enjoy the entire concept of AUs. And then I blundered into Shenanigan's [The Juniper Suite](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1814866) and suddenly I understood the depth and beauty an AU can possess. 
> 
> I couldn't get the idea of Dick desperate to set things right that cannot be made right. You cannot tell Dick Grayson "do not go there" when he needs to go there. But much like the cycle of death and decay, seeking closure may leave you with something just as fleeting.

“Who’s there?” Dick asked, like a complete moron who knew full well that things lurking in the shadows were not going to leap out and announce themselves. Bruce told him not to come back here. Bruce told him to leave it alone. Bruce told him not to do a lot of things and the days of Dick dutifully following _Batman’s orders_ were long since passed. He had left Nightwing behind as he entered the park, clad only in civvies. Wind whipped his hair into his face, and Dick felt like every step into Robinson Park was met by an invisible hand holding him back. He had pressed on, past black, glossy oak trees, past the menacing thicket where Finger Castle stood proud and tall in the tempestuous night.   
  
There was a creaking sound behind him, and Dick willed himself to still, trying only to listen. He knew he shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t be poking at wounds not yet done seeping. It was wet where he stood, slippery where the mud and the moss soaked up the water sloughing over the side of the trails in the park. Dick took a step forward and turned his boot, nestled his heel deeper into the moist loam underfoot, could feel the contrast from the gravel at the edge of the footpath. The rain came down all around him, cold and ruthless.  
  
Dick heard another snap, a twig or a branch or someone--   
  
“Who’s there?” He repeated, knowing there’d be no answer. There was a charred smell on the air, fell and sour, like a fire long burned out among rotted logs.   
  
The creaking grew louder, the sound of something long and dry scraping against a wall or a window. There was something within the noise, something softer, something that made Dick remember a dark night as a child. He was young, young enough to still be with his parents, young enough to be afraid of a storm on a summer’s night in Florida. The branches of the tree outside his family’s mobile home scraped at the window and Dick had curled in on himself, turning away from the sound and the fury of the deluge outside. The branches knocked and squealed against the windowpane, rasping against the glass as the trailer shook gently in the thunderstorm. It had sounded like skeleton hands on the edge of a grave, something sharp and sinister trying to find purchase. Dick had been afraid, so afraid, the fear of a child convinced that something unknown in the night was set to do harm upon him. The large tree groaned as its branches were battered in the rain, struck against his home. Dick’s mother had come to his side, held him against her chest, whispered to her frightened child that it was only branches, only a tree in the night going pom pom pom against the glass. Only a tree, in the rain.   
  
Dick let himself turn his neck gently, to tilt an ear, to try and _listen._ He never was much good at slowing down, staying still. Bruce could sit on a ledge for hours, watching, waiting. Dick could never quite reach that well of _patience._ A susurrus reached his ears, a soft shuffling and overlap of sound, like many voices whispering at once. There were no words he could make out.   
  
There was a rustling sound and Dick turned fully then, towards a large, dark, tangled hedge that seemed to block a large sewer tunnel. The hedge was overgrown, thick with thorns, if it once held a concrete form it was long grown wooly and misshapen. In the rain and the dark it looked pitch black, sat like a sentinel in front of the drainage entrance.   
  
This time the noise felt close, like breath at the back of his head, a sigh across his shoulders. Dick felt pinpricks of goosebumps crawl across the slim line of skin that peeked above his jacket, at the nape of his neck. He inhaled sharply.   
  
“Jason?”   
  
Dick felt foolish, insane. Wandering around a decrepit park at night, looking for? For what?   
  
There was rustling in the hedge again, the whole shape of it seeming to convulse and undulate in the wet gloomy night.   
  
Dick took a few steps towards it. The drooping trees that overhung the path laved against Dick like wet tongues. He moved to stand in front of quaking brush. Dick wet his lips. “Jason?”   
  
A handful of starlings burst forth, circling as they wove their way up into the blackened sky. The wind rushed up, a blast of chill air that beat the rain all around him, spun Dick around until he had to let his arms fly up across his face. Seemingly endless birds flew up to lash at him alongside the sharp, icy rain, and Dick let himself imagine that the brush of their wings felt leathery.   
  
The wind stilled as the rain came down now in earnest, poured down from the sky as if from a basin. A crack of thunder drowned out any other sound. Dick felt it reverberate as if coming from within his own chest.   
  


Dick dropped to his knees, ignored the way the mud squelched beneath his legs, the way the icy water seeped through his jeans. He kneeled in the dank earth. He listened and there was nothing.  
  
“I’m so sorry, Jason.” Dick said, to no one.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for letting me play in this space.


End file.
